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Ideas for a creative church service with a 'media focus' on Media Prayer Day*:
- How would Jesus respond to the top six news items of this weekend's newspapers?
- What would Jesus say to each of the characters in Desperate Housewives?
- What would Jesus' website look like? What would it promote? What other sites would it link to?
- If you worked for a major NZ advertising firm, how would you promote the "Good News"?
- How might the Apostle Paul use the media if he was a TV/Radio/Film producer today? What lessons does he teach us about how to employ the media more effectively to broadcast the gospel today?
- What would be in Jesus' CD player?
- What would Jesus rent from the video shop?
- The Simpsons pray, attend church regularly and remain loyal to each other. How do they rate as a Christian family? (Consider using a clip from The Simpsons as a sermon illustration.)
- If a TV network arrived at your church this morning to tape your service and broadcast it, would that be a good thing, or a bad thing?
- Why are there so few Christians with high profile in NZ's secular media?
- Consider the biblical/spiritual themes contained within popular movies (such as Lord Of The Rings, The Matrix, Bruce Almighty, Les Miserables etc.) and talk about the spiritual lessons we can learn from them
- Conduct an Oprah style chat show at the front of your church interviewing some non-Christians about how they feel about God/Jesus/church/Christianity.
- Explore what is the typical way Christians are represented in the media and ask why?
- Consider using video clips from movies or TV as a sermon illustration.
- Imagine a TV reality show about a non-Christian coming to live with your church community for a month. How do you think they'd fare?
- If Christians controlled the media, would they allow freedom of speech?
- Are the media consumption habits of Christians actually any different from those of non-Christians? Does our Christian worldview influence what we watch and won't watch? Should it?
- Jesus was familiar with the popular theatre of his time and employed illustrations from it to convey his message (hypocrites = actors). Should we likewise seek to broaden our understanding of the modern equivalent, the cinema and TV, in order to better reach the people of our culture? If so, how?
- Which actors/musicians/TV personalities are the top three influencers of teenagers today?
- If Jesus had been born today, would he watch/read/listen to the news? Why?/Why not?
- When did you last hear the word "forgiveness" on the news?
- If Jesus had been born today, would the media celebrate him, or crucify him? Why?
*thanks to various contributors
If you have a further idea you'd like to add to the list, please email your idea to info@mediaprayerday.org.nz